The storm has now ended in the Cottonwood canyons of UT leaving 50 inches of light dry powder, give or take a few inches depending upon who you believe. Yesterday, 3/20, was as good as it gets. The final 6" fell on a 6 degree windless night and in the morning it lay like down on top of what fell earlier. Tiny crystals reflected light in all directions like shards of glass. The snow billowed behind skiers. It was like flying. What always amazes me is how effortless it is while you’re skiing it and how tired you are when you stop. The sun was brilliant and the beauty of the evergreens draped with snow was overwhelming. I tried to take pictures with my cell phone but could not read the display in the brilliant light. No picture could do it justice anyway. perfection never lasts long. By about 1 pm the sun had begun to cook the powder just as my legs were getting cooked as well. I almost got hit with a hundred pound snow bomb dropped by a tree. I took two more runs and quit. A day to remember forever.

Here’s the alternate version of poetic, IN West Virginia:Right about the same time you were having a wonderful time enjoying those above-mentioned crystals, we were having nearly the same.

You may argue that while our snow crystals reflected and bounced light all over the place, they may have indeed carried a bit more water and weight - but they didn’t stick to anything (for some odd reason). Looking on the bright side, who wants a completely white surrounding, without any grass?

While the Northeast and even out West in the US are almost over with the ski season, I’ve been in Zermatt since Sunday, and the cannons are going off every morning and evening. This place will have snow until June.

Today I started late, 10:30, knowing that it would take time for today’s sun to soften yesterday’s sun crust. It wasn’t late enough. Powder insanity overcame judgement and led me to charge into an open area that still had no tracks. I left a big crater. After that I stuck to deeply shaded north facing slopes. There were a few and they still had uncrusted powder. The trees were tight and nobody else ventured in there. At noon I again tested an open slope. The sun had done it’s work. It wasn’t powder, more like cream cheese but it skied nicely. At 2 I quit, almost too tired to take my boots off.